Posted
by
kdawson
on Monday December 14, 2009 @08:09AM
from the service-available-but-not-to-you dept.

mauriceh writes "Since Monday Dec. 7, the Microsoft eOpen license website has been mostly 'Down for Maintenance.' When we do not see this message, we still do not see most of the normal functionality. As this is Microsoft's main channel for managing and installing licenses for products such as Server, and for open license products for business, this makes the company effectively 'closed for business!' Attempts to connect to https://eopen.microsoft.com/ are redirected (after a bad certificate warning) to https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/servicecenter/sitemaintenance.html. For those who wish to activate Microsoft Business Solutions software need to obtain Software Registration keys, and these also can not be obtained, as the site http://www.microsoft.com/BusinessSolutions/MBSRegistration does not resolve; instead one gets a Microsoft Search page. Telephone calls to their support numbers for the licensing program yield either busy signals, or a message saying one should 'call back later.'"

I agree... I've been trying to send my 360 in for RROD repairs for the better part of a month, and the site is always down in some way. Right now, I can't even pull up the main page because of an "internal server error".

No, because I'd expect the server to have some sort of data storage, which could still get corrupted. Perhaps a major flaw was discovered in the server software itself. The problem is obviously something big, that simply looking elsewhere won't fix.

No, because I'd expect the server to have some sort of data storage, which could still get corrupted. Perhaps a major flaw was discovered in the server software itself. The problem is obviously something big, that simply looking elsewhere won't fix.

I think you're still missing his point.

Take Ubuntu for example. It doesn't require activation servers, or license keys. But if for some reason they *did* decide to build that into an open source product, it would be very easy to:
a) take it out
b) dig through the code and write your own activation server
c) run your own activation server
d) tweak Ubuntu to look at your local activation server
e) tweak your firewall rules to redirect activation to your local server
f) switch to another distro without pa

In a commercial environment all those options would take a considerable amount of time to implement so you're still stuck with the outage unless you had the foresight to do it before things went wrong. The only real advantage to OSS here is that it doesn't require activation in the first place.

An open ecosystem is not the same as open source software. There are open source applications that depend on sole-source servers or services, and proprietary applications that work with open servers and use open protocols. While what you say is true, it's not really relevant to this incident.

This is about open systems, not open source... and while the two are related (and definitely good things) they're not the same thing and even, at times, have worked at cross-purposes.

If the software is proprietary, you don't have the source so your options in terms of fixing it are limited. If the software is open source, there are no such problems. So proprietary software IS more difficult to fix.

Yes, but in this case that's irrelevant... if you have the source to whatever software they are using on these servers, you still wouldn't be able to do anything about it, especially without the DB of licenses, you could tell it to look elsewhere, but it still wouldn't find it. Pretend it's YouTube, and forget about open/proprietary ranting... you could clone the site, and servers, but not the content.

It would be like, editing the source code to your web browser when you can't get online, and "fixing it" by

In this case, yes. But a 100% open service whose functionality required a given (open) server to work wouldn't be affected

I think you are mixing things up a little.

One, the original point was that proprietary systems without license servers would not be effected for installation. Since OS X has no licenses for example, you could install new versions all day long.

The second part of that sentence seems to be referring to the document DRM server... even in that case, a propritary solution where you hosted you

This site isn't really a "license server" in the way that it sounds like you mean though. I use this site once in awhile myself as we have volume licenses through Microsoft. You go to the site to download software (then you have a copy and can use it without downloading again). You also go there for your volume keys. These are keys like a KMS (Key Management Server ) key. Once you have that, you can install as many copies as you want. Or, if you choose to use the MAK (Multiple Activation Key) - those are typically good for 5,000 or so activations. They don't activate against THIS site, so until you run out of activations on your key and need another key you don't need this site. Smaller companies get keys with less activations and may have 100, 500, 1000, etc. on their MAK key.

That's a little better in that as you say you are buffered from issues with the key caching, but fundamentally still at some point someone is going to have to go to a server they do not control for the ability to do a new install.

The description is very educational though, so thanks for breaking that out to understand what is going on more deeply. I guess that's why this is not a bigger issue than it seems like it is currently.

I think they removed the serial number from Snow Leopard. Regardless, the older versions simply used a serial number that did not require activation. My beef is with relying on the server you do not control, simple license keys validate via an algorithm which means if you have a key and the install disk it will work forever, without internet access or remote servers.

In this case, yes. But a 100% open service whose functionality required a given (open) server to work wouldn't be affected: just change the server and you're back.

Depends on the nature of the service. If it involves large amounts of data and wasn't already set up to replicate the data to a backup system, bringing things back up (whether or not you've got the source code) might be very difficult simply because people don't just want the service itself, but they also want the state embodied by the service. After all, if you had a NAS box with lots of data on it, you wouldn't be able to bring the service provided by it back up just by plugging a new NAS box in. You'd st

Proprietary software whose functionality requires a given service to be infallible is the problem

and just two stories down is another article [slashdot.org] telling how MS let a cert expire now and it's causing software written in 2003 to lock users out... MS is just flush with examples of this flawed concept today...

The rest of the internet is like a sweatshop-slavery conditions! No time off not even on Chrismiss! But Microsoft allows the interent to take a vacations with its family and frineds in this holiday season, which promotes social justice and peace.

Greetings and Salutations. This is the last of a number of massive infrastructure failures in the past few months. The issues with Gmail, T-Mobile, SwissDisk, etc and this should be a warning that the computing infrastructure is becoming baroquely fragile. Fragility and unreliability in the basic tools necessary to keep a business running are hard to deal with in good economic times. With the current, VERY stressed situation, it could easily cause marginal busin

This is the last of a number of massive infrastructure failures in the past few months. The issues with Gmail, T-Mobile, SwissDisk, etc and this should be a warning that the computing infrastructure is becoming baroquely fragile.

Nonsense. The infrastructure is perfectly sound. Our reliance on these few companies to do what could be done and used to be done in simpler ways is our problem. These companies care more about their next new venture than doing the extra work to make sure it works correctly the

As a Microsoft reseller, we received notification on Tuesday Dec 8th that eOpen is supposed to be gone and replaced with:www.microsoft.com/licensing/servicecenter/Of course this new link doesn't work either, but at least we know that the eOpen portal itself not working is intentional.

same - I've known through the eOpen portal itself since November 1 that the site is no longer going to "exist" as of 8th Dec. So to all the MS bashers - the site going down has been public knowledge for well over a month.

This is madness. You can't say "Oh well they were always going to shut down on this date" without an implied "the new server will be active". It's not separate in any way, the old server going down and the new server coming up were linked events, the new server being a precondition for the old to vanish.

Unless you were saying it makes any kind of sense to adhere to deadlines and damn the customers?

Greetings and Salutations... Hum...back in the day, when I migrated a customer from one package to another one, I had this tendency to bring up the new software, and run in parallel for a week or so. I seem to have missed the memo about simply shutting off the old service then, at some time in the future bringing up the "new, Improved" version.
But then, I have spent 30 years trying to actually HELP businesses make m

Which is just another case where MS does not use community standards. Community standards suggest that when one page is replaced with another, the first informs the user of the obsolete status, remind the user to change the bookmark, then redirect to the new page.

In MS customer service world, the old page is simply removed, and the user is left to wonder what to do.

I hate to comment on my own post, but I just found out that another service window for the VLSC site was planned on the 12th, it actually states that in the second link I posted below. Anyone in IT will tell you a weekend outage lasting into Monday morning is not a basis for front page news.

I hate to comment on my own post, but I just found out that another service window for the VLSC site was planned on the 12th, it actually states that in the second link I posted below. Anyone in IT will tell you a weekend outage lasting into Monday morning is not a basis for front page news.

I don't know about you but I'd probably be out looking for a job if the sites I run were down on open of business monday morning.

The VLSC site also appears to be down now, but maybe the swap is taking longer then planned or they are working out a bug on the week old site.

Not saying Microsoft doesn't screw up, but lets get all the facts, eOpen is closed for good and has been replaced.

Sounds to me more like eOpen is closed for good and hasn't been replaced. Maybe when this new site is up, it will have been. Right now, however, Microsoft is screwing the proverbial pooch, and no amount of apology will remove egg from face.

Except that you're complete wrong on all counts given that both events were scheduled. Eopen was supposed to end and Microsoft gave all of us plenty of notice of this. The new site was working for a while but is down for scheduled maintenance. This isn't near as bad as you're making it out to be. It's amazing how people will look for even non-existent reasons to bash MS when there are so many legit reasons.

I tried to process an eOpen license last week. When the VLSC site finally was up, I went to add the license to our account, only to be completely unable to find an option to do so. Finally I gave up in frustration, and called their tech support line. I was on hold for 2.5 hours, and when they finally answered, was told they "forgot" that functionality when they did the "upgrade" to the VLSC from the old eOpen site. Luckily I already have the media and such, and can go ahead and build the server and put

Microsoft are trying to rationalise how their licensing works. Historically, they've had a myriad of different websites you had to use depending on if you have an Open Subscription License, an Open Value License, an MSDN license or a license that you made up yourself with a box of magic markers and a sheet of paper.

They're certainly trying to merge Subscription and Open Value right now - I recently purchased a few licenses on the OVS plan (the website for which is being shut down) and I'm having trouble accessing them on the "new" system.

This isn't another "gosh how fragile everything is" story. This is a bog standard "some f*ckwit decided to go live with the new system without testing it properly" story. The only eyebrow-raising part is that you would expect Microsoft to have a whole brace of plan Bs in place at the drop of a hat for just such an occurrence.

One would hope Microsoft would have a whole brace of Plan B's in place at the drop of a hat, particularly considering the recent Danger/Sidekick fiasco. However, anyone who has worked with Microsoft products for any length of time and continues to do so must be fairly used to the triumph of hope over experience by now.

Indeed, it's one of the chief reasons I'm going Open Source everywhere I can. Budget is part of it, but it's just as much the obscene horror story that their licensing is. Couple that with the fragility of their only real option for license management, and you get a picture of a company that's awfully good at cashing your check, but has little concern with any kind of meaningfully delivery of service. This is what a monopoly gets you, incompetence and arrogance.

They've been planning to replace eOpen for months. If you had viewed the warning message in red text at the top of the eOpen page since November 1st, you would know this.

Also, the volume licensing site is usually down on weekends for "maintenance" even though it seems like it's to deter piracy in the form of IT licensing admins logging in from home and downloading software. I don't think I've ever been able to connect to it from a Time Warner home cable connection.

And yet, when you get a Microsoft Open License Order Confirmation, the first section directs you:

Volume License Keys

Also included on the eOpen site, are your applicable Volume Licensing Product keys for installation of products requiring a VLK. If you are unable to find your VLKs, you can obtain them by calling the Activation Call Center for your region. Procedures for obtaining your VLKs and for Activation Center phone numbers can be found by going to http://www.microsoft.com/licensin [microsoft.com]

As one of their ideal customers, we used to make a lot of use of eOpen. We registered all our licences on there, and it was nice, a single portal to track all of our Microsoft licences and upgrade rights.

Then we left it without logging on for a while (after all, it was all working fine), and the next time we tried to use it we discovered Microsoft had wiped *ALL* of our licence information that we had painstakingly entered into their site.

Turns out that they linked the accounts to Live, and that your account expires if you don't use it for 90 days.

Handy that for corporate account licence management, and strangely enough we haven't used it since.

Same shit happened to pretty much all of my clients. I've been insisting that people keep all of their licensing info registered so that they have an easy off-site access point in addition to their regular documentation backups, to keep it "safe" and quick to get at - and after all where better then the very vendor who insists on all that activation and serial number crap, surely they will appreciate their customer's efforts! Even if it is a truly vile de-facto monopolist vendor such as Microsoft... but th

I'm the free IT guy for the non-profit my sister works for. They got XP licenses back when you could actually buy them. Then, Genuine Advantage stopped working on a computer. The answer? "You don't own that license, it isn't valid." I have a proof of purchase, I have the actual print out of the license (And no, it wasn't an annual one or such). And Microsoft refused to authorize it. So, it'll be back to legal pirating for them. You can't pirate it

We have a few licenses that used to be managed through eOpen, I never received any notification about its disappearance, but happened to discover the switch to Volume License Service Center on Friday when trying to login to eOpen. VLSC was definitely up and running at that point, I could log in and manage the same licenses that I used to with eOpen.

That said, the initial terms of agreement screen that appeared after logging into to VLSC was terribly confusing. A blank window with no instructions, I was exp

Hardware distribution is an entirely different and far more complicated matter, you need sufficient manufacturing capacity, combined with sufficient supply of the source components... Any of these failing will cause significant delays, a single tiny part being in short supply can scupper your entire production run.

Software on the other hand, once you have one copy distributing more is trivial.

I bet there is a server experiencing downtime every hour somewhere in the world causing customers pain. Lets post individual stories about it ! We can get to the next +100,000 milestone in no time..:)

Hi. You have no clue. I am an IT manager for a mid-sized company. Microsoft FORCES me through their eOpen site for my licensing. Want to do site licensing? you use eOpen. And the site sucks. Features don't work. The navigation is a nightmare. And now, it is down. So, yes, it is a big deal.